


The Way Things Are

by scxlias



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, M/M, Modern Royalty, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 21:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5801653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scxlias/pseuds/scxlias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The treaty is something that’s been a part of Scott’s life ever since he was born. </p><p>Nothing’s written down, nothing is official or set in stone, that’s what his mother says at least, but Scott knows.</p><p>He’s known it since he was nine, but its been a fact for longer. </p><p>He’s promised to a Hale. And that’s the way things are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dancingelf88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingelf88/gifts).



> Based off a prompt found on tumblr from elfysparkles88:  
> "The one where they’re both royalty who have been unofficially promised to the other since they were children. And they mostly got along as children but now they’re adults and the unofficial engagement is now VERY REAL. But Scott thinks Derek’s a dick and Derek thinks Scott is too naive and they butt heads all the time. Cue arguing montages. Cue eventually finding common ground and getting to know each other (complete with a walk around the grounds that changes EVERYTHING). Cue happy ever after."

The treaty is something that’s been a part of Scott’s life ever since he was born. 

Nothing’s written down, nothing is official or set in stone, that’s what his mother says at least, but Scott knows.

He’s known it since he was nine, but its been a fact for longer. 

He’s promised to a Hale. And that’s the way things are. 

They meet with the Hales regularly when Scott is young. Scott’s mother is close friends with Talia Hale, its how they ended up in this situation.

When they're young, Scott is grateful. He looks forward to visits with the Hales, the week long trips that mean breaks from politics and stiff businessmen and advisers and generals.

Most important to nine-year-old Scott, it means breaks from his father. 

He notices on these trips, that Derek doesn’t seem to feel the same way about his father as Scott feels about his. 

Scott never says anything about that, though.

When they’re growing up, Scott gets along with Laura the best. Laura is loud and takes up space where Scott is more reserved, smaller than Laura in every sense of the word. Laura takes charge of every situation that she, Scott and her siblings find themselves in, but she always double checks everything with Scott first. They couldn’t be more different. But they get along well. Talia comments more than once that its a shame that it couldn’t be Scott and Laura that they promise to each other. 

They’re both set to inherit the throne. There’s no way they can take the crown prince or princess from their country. 

When Scott and Cora are nine, Derek is twelve and Laura is fifteen, Cora overhears Talia and Shane and Melissa and Rafael discussing something in hushed voices over dinner while the Hales are paying a visit to the McCall’s. 

She comes back to where Derek is reading and Laura is tapping away at her phone and Scott is assembling a rather complicated tower of Legos and tells them all, her wolf eyes flashing in her distress because she’d thought their parents were joking when they were younger but they weren’t. 

“Derek and Scott are gonna get married! I heard mom and dad and Melissa and Prince Rafael talking about it. Mom said something about promises and someone said be-troth-ed.” She sounds the word out carefully. "I dunno what that means, but it sounds not good.” Cora’s expression is the most concerned Scott’s ever seen it. 

Derek snaps his book shut and storms out of the room, confusion written all over his face, eyes glowing gold.

When the Hales go home, Scott asks his parents what it means that they promised he’s going to marry Derek and it becomes a very long night in the McCall home. 

Scott is sent up to bed after a short explanation.

He doesn’t sleep. 

Even from his room, even behind the heavy doors, he can hear his father shouting about Scott’s question, about the marriage, about an arrangement she had the nerve to set up without him. 

He can hear his mother shouting back, the sound of a glass shattering, Melissa screaming “I’m the goddamn Queen, you have no right…”

Scott pulls the pillow over his head then, tries to drown out the yelling. 

It doesn’t work.

When the little red numbers on the clock by his bed read 1:06 and the yelling is still going on, getting louder, even, Scott climbs out of bed. His little feet pad across the floor, and he throws all his weight into dragging his heavy door open, stepping out into the still lit hallway, rubbing his eyes.

“Mom?” he mumbles blearily, so, so tired. “What’s going–ah!” 

“I told you to go to bed!” 

The smell he catches on his father’s breath is sharp and wrong. He learns it was the smell of alcohol when he’s seventeen. 

And then his father’s hand is closing around his wrist and he’s moving too fast for his feet to catch him and then there’s nothing to catch his feet on and he’s falling and…

He blacks out to the sound of his mother’s scream and wakes up to a doctor hovering over him. 

He remembers nothing after he was sent to bed. 

He doesn’t see his father again.

He hears whispers of court and jail time and never coming back between his mother and some of her advisers. He wonders why there’s a little bit of his memory missing from the night his dad left. 

He doesn’t find out until years later.

After that night, they don’t visit the Hales as much. 

Scott wonders why. He misses seeing Laura and Cora so much, but Derek… 

After the news from Cora, finding out they were likely to be married, Derek avoids Scott. 

The older two Hales, while they didn’t often take part in the games anymore, always made a point to hang around in the same room as Scott and Cora as they played or watched TV. 

Derek stops doing even that. 

Scott wonders if he did something wrong. 

Laura insists he didn’t. 

Scott isn’t so sure, but there’s nothing to do about it.

He shakes the thought out of his head and returns his attention to what he’s doing with Cora. and doesn’t think about Derek.


	2. Countdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another very brief reference to Scott's dad at the very end.
> 
> As always, come scream at me for my lack of self-control @ scxlias on tumblr

John Stilinski is Queen Melissa's Chief of Security. 

His son is Scott's age.

By the time they're 12, Stiles has shown Scott every single way he knows to sneak out of the castle without a single one of the guards noticing. 

When they turn 16, this proves to be a problem. 

* * *

 Scott has grown up around werewolves his entire life.

He's promised to one, after all. 

He's comfortable around them, though he knows there are some who don't appreciate the fact that there is something bigger and badder out there than humans. His dad was one of those people. 

Scott doesn't mind though.

He knows that the stereotype that werewolves are vicious creatures, more animal than human, is untrue. He believes that its something bitter humans came up with because they didn't like discovering, all those years ago, that they were no longer the most powerful beings on the planet, and that they never had been.

* * *

 When Scott and Stiles are 16, Stiles over hears his father talking to one of the guards about a body found just outside the palace gates.

Only its not a normal body.

Its only half of one. 

Stiles finds Scott in his rooms and pleads with him, and Scott, never able to tell Stiles no, agrees. 

They sneak out of the palace at midnight, and the guards are none the wiser. 

Its a mistake.

They've only just made it outside of the gates when Scott says, "I have a bad feeling about this."

He's right. 

Stiles says, "There's nothing to be worried about. If anything happens, you scream and one of the guards comes running. Nothing's gonna happen."

He's wrong.

Not even five minutes pass after Stiles says that before something happens. 

Scott screams and its too late. 

When the guards come running, there is a beast standing over their Prince and Stiles is unconscious, slumped against the fence. They open fire on the creature without any warning. The second shot kills it, but five more are fired anyway. Just to make sure. Scott watches in horror as the creature fades back into its human form.

Its Derek's uncle. 

Peter Hale. 

Scott turns his head to the side and throws up. 

He screams again when one of the guards tries to help him up, the movement causing a searing pain to shoot through his side. He lifts up his shirt to see what the hell that was and almost throws up again. There's a bite mark in his side, deep and still oozing red, and its in the shape of Peter's mouth. The guard ignores what's going on around them and rushes Scott inside, leaving Stiles to the others. 

"Scott?" Melissa says as soon as she sees him, her eyes going wide. "What the hell happened to my son?" She rounds on the guard helping Scott, her voice low, steady and the most terrifying Scott's ever heard it. 

The guard explains, unable to look Melissa in the eye as he tells her what happened to Scott and Stiles. Melissa sends for John and a doctor and demands that Stiles be brought directly to the room they're in as well. 

Its a long night. 

Scott's side is healed by morning. 

Melissa calls Talia in a panic.

The full moon is in less than 48 hours. 

* * *

 

Talia asks that Melissa and Scott make an emergency visit to her country that day, to pack up and get there as soon as they can. It sounds more like a demand than a request. Melissa agrees without hesitation. 

* * *

 

They make it to the Hales before they hear anything, but they've barely gotten in the door when Cora says, "You are all over the news." and drags Scott to the nearest computer.

She's not wrong. The first story that pops up when Cora pulls up six different news sites is about Scott. 

Everyone knows he's been bitten. 

Only one site dares accuse Peter Hale of being the one to do it, and its only because they have an image of the crime scene, of a coroner's van outside the palace gates, and the reporter's eye-witness account of Peter Hale being loaded into a body bag.

Scott thinks he might be sick. 

"We were hoping you'd have the freedom to be able to tell people when you were ready, but it seems we won't have the luxury," Talia says, and the way her voice rolls over him has him shuddering. 

Every part of him wants to turn to the woman behind him, fall to his knees and beg for her acceptance. 

He doesn't and it makes him shudder again. 

"Its because she's the alpha," Laura says quietly, and Scott jumps. He doesn't know how he missed her coming up behind him, but she's there, standing between Talia and Melissa and glaring at the image on the computer screen. 

"What?" Scott asks. His skin feels too tight, his chest feels too tight, his lungs feel like they won't expand all the way, and he can feel Talia Hale's eyes burning a hole in his back. He wants to scream. "What's happening to me?"

"You're turning. The bite mark on your side, it healed, right?" Laura asks, her voice still quiet and level. 

Scott is grateful for that, because everything else is screaming loud in his head, voices pounding through his skull, the sounds of the computer running ringing through his brain. He feels like his head's going to explode, maybe take the rest of him with it. He wonders if that'd be that bad of an option. 

The full moon is less than 36 hours away. 

When Scott spins the desk chair he's sitting in around to face the others, Talia's eyes are red and his heart rate jacks up so fast it almost makes him dizzy, and before he can even process what's happening, a whine is working its way out of his throat, and he's tipping his head back, baring his neck to the womanQueenAlpha in front of him. 

His entire body burns with shame. This feels wrong, but doing anything else brings on such crippling fear, he can't bring himself to move. 

Talia reaches out, places a hand on the back of Scott's neck and digs blunt, human nails into his skin. 

The feeling of everything being too tight in his body subsides slightly. It doesn't go away though. 

"Scott, listen. I understand that you're scared. This never should have happened to you, and what my brother did is unforgivable. The bite is a gift. It should never be forced on someone the way it was forced on you, and I'm so sorry. But, unfortunately, now you have to live with the consequences of Peter's actions. You are turning and you will have to fight through your first full moon tomorrow night."

Talia removes her hand from Scott's neck, and he stands, looks at all of the people surrounding him, and panics. 

Then he does the first thing that comes to mind. 

He runs. 

He doesn't miss Talia telling his mother, "He won't leave."

It's not even spoken to his face, but Scott can tell its a command, knows that Talia knows he'll hear it, and that settles it. 

He won't leave the palace, because the alpha won't let him.

* * *

Scott knows the Hale palace like the back of his hand. After a few visits, Cora had shown him all her hiding places and Derek had shown him a few places the guards didn't look all the time if you wanted to just be left alone for a while. 

Scott finds himself heading for one of those places as he runs, a little room in the north wing of the palace, where the guards knew if the door was closed, one of the children was in there and wanted to be left alone. 

He slams the door shut behind him and just paces for a while, tries to get rid of the feeling that the world is caving in around him. The feeling doesn't go away.

Someone knocks at the door and Scott barks out a rough, "Go away."

They don't go away. The person opens the door and Scott honest to god thinks about smashing their head in with his bare hands because he just wants to be alone.

"What the hell are you doing? You're gonna wear a little trench into the floor with all that pacing."

Scott growls at Derek as he walks into the room and slumps against the wall like he owns the place. 

Which, technically, he does, but that doesn't matter.

"What the fuck do you want?" Scott bites out, and he hates that he's being so mean, its so unlike him, but he's so pissed off he can't help it. Derek just rolls his eyes. 

"You ran away from my mother pretty rudely an hour ago. I came to figure out where the hell you ran off to." 

"I came here to be alone," Scott growls, the sound reverberating through his chest. "Go the fuck away."

"You're in my house McCall."

Scott slams Derek into a wall. "I don't go by that name anymore. And none of this would be happening if your psycho uncle hadn't attacked me and bit me!"

"The bite is a gift, Scott."

"I don't fucking want it!"

Derek grabs Scott's shoulders and flips them around, slams Scott into the wall instead, one arm pressed over Scott's chest, just below his neck.

"I don't care what you want. This is what you have now. You were given a gift, whether you want it or not. You need to learn to live with that."

Scott is hit suddenly with a flash of the smell of bitterwrongbad and the feeling of a hand closing around his arm and the feeling of falling as Derek presses a little harder into his chest. 

He shakes out of the almost memory and Derek's hold before the panic overwhelms him and swallows him whole. 

"I don't want it," Scott repeats, and he doesn't yell it this time. His voice is quiet, defeated.

Derek trips over a few words before settling on, "So, uh, why don't you go by McCall anymore?"

Scott rounds on Derek, feels something change in him, learns later it was his eyes flashing gold, and bares human teeth at the other boy. "Because I don't want to go by the name of the man who abused my mother and I for nine years. I go by Delgado now."

Derek opens and closes his mouth a few times before Scott scoffs at him and heads for the door. 

"Don't follow me." 

When the door slams shut behind Scott and he heads for one of Cora's hiding places instead of  one of Derek's, the full moon is only 28 hours away.

And Scott can already feel its pull. 


	3. Full Moon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I'm in hell @ _[scxlias](http://scxlias.tumblr.com/)_ on tumblr

The full moon doesn’t go well.

It hurts, more than anything Scott has ever felt, and he can’t control it. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t control it.

* * *

 

Melissa can’t stay in the room with him.

Laura and Cora are in the heavily reinforced room with Scott, Talia outside with Melissa, trying to calm her. Derek is nowhere to be found.

Laura speaks calmly as she locks heavy manacles around Scott’s wrists, chaining him to the wall.

“Hey, Scotty, I know this is scary, but I promise you, everything’s gonna work out fine.” She fastens the second manacle and takes a step back as he tests them out. “Alright. So this is the first time you’re ever going to shift, and its going to feel weird. You’re bitten, so you don’t have advantage that we do, having grown up with a wolf under our skin.” Laura sounds every bit the alpha she’s going to be one day.

Cora, on the other hand, is blunt as ever. “Its gonna hurt, is what she’s trying to say. Its gonna hurt like hell because something that’s never been there before is pushing its way to the surface, and its new and weird and it’ll hurt.”

Scott stares at the two of them, wringing his hands together, chains rattling.

Laura glares at Cora. Cora just shrugs.

Laura sighs. “Okay, yeah, Scott, this is going to hurt, but not for long. Once you’ve shifted, it stops hurting, but that’s when it gets hard. That’s when your human self starts slipping away and you have to really fight.”

“You won’t be able to fight the shift. Not this time, but you might be able to retain enough of your human side that you won’t hurt yourself trying to get out of those,” Cora adds, jerking her chin in the direction of the heavy chains securing Scott to the wall.

Scott nods numbly, staring at the manacles on his wrists. 

He can feel this itch underneath his skin, like he wants to claw it all from his body, rend his own flesh from his bones to get this damn feeling to go away. 

Laura crouches in front of him, takes one of his hands. “Scott, this is all gonna be okay. Don’t try to fight the shift, that’ll just make it hurt more. The only thing you want to fight is the wolf in your head. You want to stay all you up there.” She taps his head and then stands. “We’ll be here all night to try to help you through it. Just try to relax.” 

* * *

 

Scott tries to relax.

Scott tries not to fight it.

Scott tries to stay human.

Scott fails. 

By the time the moon has been up for an hour, Scott has lost every trace of his humanity. 

He’s growling, thrashing in his restraints, lunging forward to try to claw at Laura and Cora as they shout over his roars, trying to bring his human self out. 

They fail too. 

* * *

 

Scott goes for hours in the same way, none of his human side showing through the animal at his surface. 

Finally, Cora sighs and darts forward, dodging Scott’s claws, and slams him into the wall, his head snapping backward and cracking into the wall. 

“Scott get it together!” she growls, her hands pressing his shoulders into the wall, claws digging into his skin.

“Cora, let him go!” Laura shouts, her eyes flashing gold. Cora’s flash in response. 

Scott’s eyes actually fade back to brown from their glowing gold. He shakes his head and winces and shies away from Cora until she releases him. 

“What the hell was that? What did you do to me?” Scott asks, his voice hoarse and rough, speaking as he slides down the wall to sit on the floor. 

Cora sags in relief, dropping to the floor beside Scott. “Pain,” she breathes, Laura’s relieved sigh heard loud and clear over Cora’s voice. “Pain makes you human. Its not something mom really likes for us to do, but its good as a last resort and you were gonna hurt yourself worse than a  little bump on the head if you kept going. Look at your wrists.”

Scott does as she says and gags. His wrists are rubbed raw and bloody, skin stripped away in some places, the metal dug in so far in one spot that when he pulls it away, he thinks he can see bone. 

He watches in horrified fascination as his body begins to repair itself, flesh fitting back together and skin knitting back into one piece. It almost makes him sick. There’s not a mark left on his body to show that there was ever an injury there at all by the time he’s done healing. 

They sit there in silence only broken by an occasional snippet of conversation that dies down quickly. Cora dozes against the wall near Scott and Scott himself falls in and out of restless sleep for the next few hours. 

Laura doesn’t rest, watching her sister and Scott carefully. 

* * *

 

While Scott is shifting for the first time, Derek is doing his very best to avoid everyone in the palace, something he’s perfected over the past three years especially. 

Scott got bit. 

Peter bit Scott. 

His uncle, his closest friend, he’d thought, had bit the boy Derek was promised to. 

He thinks back to a conversation he’d had with Peter a few weeks prior. He can’t believe he’d been so stupid, that he hadn’t seen something was wrong. 

“ _You’re promised to a human, Derek,” Peter said, his nose scrunching up in distaste._

_“Yeah, and?” Derek asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. “Scott’s, like halfway decent, I guess. I don’t know. We don’t really see the McCalls anymore.”  
_

_“Exactly. And you’ve seen that Rafael,” Peter’s voice twisted in disgust, “You know he hates us, hates what we are. Racist bastard. More time your dear future husband spends around that asshole, the more he’s gonna hate you. He’ll never really understand you or our family. Not while he’s like this.”  
_

_Derek shook his head, growling quietly. “Peter don’t be stupid. He’s always been more like Queen Melissa.”_

_“Melissa’s human too. You’ve got to do something.”  
_

_“I’m not gonna... No. What are you even talking about? Scott’s fine. I still don’t want to marry him, but he’ll be fine with the werewolf thing.”  
_

_Peter shook his head, eyes flashing gold. “Of course. So much like your mother, Derek. Maybe I’ll just have to do something about it then.”_

_Then he stood, throwing one last judging look at Derek, before stalking out of the room. Derek had never seen Peter flash his eyes again after that._

He knew now that it was because Peter had gone and made himself an alpha. He’d killed someone. He’d bitten Scott against his will, to prove a point, to make sure he’d always “understand” Derek. Derek could never let Scott find out. 

Scott could never know that Derek was the reason this had happened to him. 

* * *

 

Laura leaves as soon as Talia comes to let them out of the locked room, and Scott knows, just _knows_  somehow, that she’s exhausted and just going to get some sleep so he’s not mad at her for running away from him so quickly. 

Cora helps him over to her mother and they both help him to a room in the family’s wing of the castle. 

He collapses the second he hits the bed and is asleep in seconds. Talia leads Melissa into the room and the Hales leave them be. 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, first, I am not even sorry that this is the third arranged marriage au that I have written and I am also not sorry that this is the second time its been scerek. I have no self control.
> 
> Second, the child abuse refers to Scott's father and the canon event with Scott and the stairs. Please be careful reading.
> 
> Third, hit me up on tumblr @ scxlias to scream at me for doing this again.


End file.
